On August 5 Welsh by blood/Angelino by ZIP code singer Jem returns with a follow-up to 2008’s Down to Earth. This time around she was inspired by band from the '60s and '70s and ended up recording a concept record, Beachwood Canyon. While discussing the new album, we ended up covering a lot of ground: from wanting to feel like a member of The Beatles to Justin Bieber’s hair. Read the full interview below.

How are you?

I’m great! How are you?

I’m all good, thanks. Just listened to your new record, feeling relaxed and mellow before the Friday night.

Oh great! After we’re done you have to play the new “Beachwood Canyon” remix and then you’ll feel ready to go out.

It’s a smart move to have contemporary remixes to your '60s-inspired record.

It’s interesting, I mix it up on each record. And I knew this one was gonna be a bit slower so I needed remixes for people who enjoy beats. I knew it could work both ways.

Talking about slow, you have to explain yourself — where have you been all this time? Your last album came out in 2008…

I knew this was gonna be the first question, haha! When people say “eight years” it does sound crazy. But it was all natural. Around the time I released my previous record I felt that the music industry was a Titanic kinda thing. I decided to get out of my label, it was a lot of legal things. By the time I was done I needed a break. The whole musical landscape has changed. I wanted to see what was gonna happen to the industry.

I always loved movies, and I’m living in Los Angeles, so eventually I discovered that I absolutely love screenwriting. I did a lot of that. I’m looking for producers and funding now on a side by the way (wink-wink). I’ve been doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff basically, so I wasn't lazy, I promise. Then life happened, too. Me and my husband got inside of the Bermuda Triangle situation so to speak. We decided to move to New York and it turned out to be a disaster, so we eventually came back to LA, but it surely cost us a lot of time. That delayed the album release a lot.

So what’s your movie is going to be about?

It’s an action crime comedy. I always reference Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels — it’s kinda like that.

What should we know about the new record? What made you turn to the soothing sounds of the '60s and '70s as the main source of inspiration? Despite the fact that it’s perfect for LA weather.

This album is actually a mixture of older and newer songs. It started years ago. There’s a lot of history in Beachwood Canyon. My brother was staying with us in this area and started playing this melody, and that’s how that song was born. I started thinking about “Beachwood Canyon” as a side project, ‘cause it’s not quite like what I did before. But it eventually became a full-fledged next album.

Then some years later I had this vision. I thought about what it was like for The Beatles. I’m obviously a solo artist, and I work a lot in the bedroom studio — it’s all friends, samples and hip-hop, and I love that. But I had this vision of rug on the floor and the whole band in one room — this old-school recording session, which I never done. And I realized I wanted to try that. I’m always like that: nothing for ages and then one text to a friend — and I’m working on my next album. "I wanna make an album now!" you know.

You probably needed a special place to record all of that, right?

Oh sure! We went to this crazy studio where Stevie Wonder wrote Song in the Key of Life, which is one of my favorite albums. The video that’s coming out soon was shot there, too. And — believe me — that studio is a very strange place! I think there are a lot of drugs that were going on there back in the day. There are all these mirrors and wood everywhere.

It was a very different way of making the record from making the tracks. I’m a bit of a perfectionist when I’m making music, so I keep going on and on until I’m happy. I like to think that my music has this special energy. I hope people will take their time to actually listen to the whole record while driving to the beach or just close their eyes and feel like I’m taking them somewhere special.

You’ve covered the '70s now, but let’s talk about the '80s for a bit. Did you watch the movie version of Jem and the Holograms?

Ha! I have not! But when I started professionally in the music business I actually had to write a formal letter to get my trademark, not the Holograms, just Jem. I had to write a letter saying that I’m a real person, I don’t have pink hair. When I started out a lot of people were going “Is she truly outrageous?” and my publicist had no idea what it meant, haha!

So the movie flopped and I’m sure if they used your music, it would do better!

Well it’s funny because my friend, who used to do my hair and make-up, ended up doing Justin Bieber’s hair, she did the Bieber cut. I believe that Justin’s manager produced that movie and she actually worked on the set. And we joked that they should use my music, but it didn’t happen. It would’ve been a funny tie-in though.